Brave New World
by Aelan Greenleaf
Summary: His name wasn’t his, stolen from a book left behind years ago and given to him to forever remind him of his connections to the stars. Slight AU for The Brotherhood. PART THREE UP
1. Hope

A/N: AU double-drabble and slight future-fic. Deviates from canon from a certain (and obvious) point in "The Brotherhood". Having read Aldous Huxley's novel probably will help, but isn't necessary.

* * *

**_Brave New World_**

* * *

His name wasn't his, stolen from a book left behind years ago and given to him to forever remind him of his connections to the stars.

His name has double connotations, for it is both the name of another child of two worlds and the name of a man his mother had known long ago. Not his father, she gently informs him, but a man who knew him, and knew him well.

He lives and breathes off of her scattered memories, brief snippets of truth and life about the father he's never known. And though it hurts her to tell him, his father will never return again, for the pain caused by a necessary betrayal runs too deep.

But as the young and foolish do, he still hopes, clinging to it like a rope ladder to the stars, praying that one day he'll find his father climbing down it, stepping down from the heavens and wrapping him up into his arms. But as the years slip by, he realizes that the truth he so badly craves is not synonymous with happiness.

He realizes that his rope ladder will always be empty, and that there is no one to take him home.


	2. Home

**A/N: With the wonderful feedback I have received, I decided to continue with a second double-drabble (200 words) **

* * *

**_Home_**

* * *

She pushes two objects into his hands, activating the first with the touch of her finger, and gently positioning his arm to cradle the other. "Be safe," she whispers, as she dials the final symbol of the Ancestors and gestures him towards the stone ring. 

He panics. "What will I tell them?"

There is universe of pain reflected in her eyes as she gazes upon him one last time. The Wraith draw near, their weapons striking uncomfortably close. "They will know," she breathes, and she crumples to the ground, defeated by the enemy.

He throws himself through the ring, thinking of his rope ladder and how it had been here all along. Just before he leaves, a strange feeling overcomes him, masked by the sensation of passing through the portal to the stars.

He lands on the other side with a shaky balance, and he looks up to find five people assembled before him. The farthest one stares at him incredulously, and the boy remarks in some distant part of his consciousness that they share the same cerulean eyes.

"Home?" he whispers, but the full effect of the stunner overcomes him, and as he falls to the ground he wonders if he ever should have hoped at all.


	3. Comfort

**_Comfort_**

* * *

He blinks himself awake, feeling the drumming behind his eyes and the soft pain of waking up injured.

He notices her only after several seconds, looking around the obviously sterile and immaculate room. His first thought is about his mother, almost opening his mouth to address her as such, but then he notices that her hair is in loose curls around her soft and friendly face, and the almost imperceptible swell of her stomach just visible underneath her shirt.

"Hello," she says warmly, and her voice is like soft honey to his ears, soothing and comforting.

"Hi-his wife?" he manages to croak out in a battered voice.

"I am," she confirms, and for some inexplicable reason, this comforts him. Maybe it's the resemblance to his mother, maybe it's simply the soothing presence, but it pleases him all the same.

"I'm sorry he's not here," she continues, and he knows then that she is speaking of his father, her growing child's father, her husband. "It's hard for him; he doesn't quite know what to do."

There is a strange pressure behind the boy's eyes, and he fights it, not wanting to appear weak. "Wi-will he ever come to see me?" he whispers, and he tries so hard to keep the hope out of his voice.

She leans close, and he can even smell the softness of her floral perfume. "Without a doubt," she tells him confidently, and John McKay finds himself reassured.


End file.
